Stop Regressing!

8:47pm

11:48pm

2:57am

5:20 am

Those are the times when Sophia woke up last night after her bedtime of 7pm. I remember them exactly. At 11:48pm I thought my watch was wrong and that it was 1:48am, I don't know how that would make it any better but for some reason my bleary mind thought it would. At 2:57am my husband rolled over with a sigh, got out of bed and went to sleep on our too-short couch.

The first two feedings I tried to simply comfort Sophia by directing her to her thumb (she never has taken a pacifier). She just got frustrated, when I did give in and pick her up she rooted around and started trying to suck on my cheek. OK. She was definitely hungry. Both times she nursed for about 20 minutes and then fell asleep. But at 5:20am she seemed less hungry: I fed her anyway, and after about 10 minutes she stopped nursing; her head lolled to the side and she was fast asleep. We both went back to bed, and Mark came back from the couch.

In the late evening when Sophia WAS sleeping I spent my time researching the "four month sleep regression." Seems like that's what we might be going through. I told Sophia last night before I put her down at seven: "Stop regressing! We want progress, here!" I don't think she got it.

It was helpful to read comments from other moms who seem to be going through the same thing. Some offered hope that it wouldn't last. Others were slightly less hopeful: "It didn't stop until 16 months." I'm hoping that it is just a phase and not a habit that persist for the next 12 months--at least by then we might be in a two bedroom apartment and I can just let her Cry it Out. I have no problem with letting her Cry it Out (or CIO as it's called in so many of those forums), but that just isn't an option right now with one bedroom; and if she really is hungry and going through a growth spurt, I want to feed her.

Even with all that research I don't' have a solution and I'm still exhausted. Which makes me wonder how I even did this three months ago, when she was a newborn and NEEDED to eat every two hours? Needless to say I won't be running today. I'm just too tired, and its raining--I paid my running-in-the-rain dues last week.